


The Crumbling Difference

by embroiderama



Category: White Collar
Genre: 1990s, Alternate Universe: Early Meeting, Chance Meetings, Gen, Homelessness, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-30
Updated: 2012-10-30
Packaged: 2017-11-17 09:22:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroiderama/pseuds/embroiderama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Through sheer coincidence or the vagaries of fate, three people met Neal Caffrey in the months between when he arrived in New York and when he met Mozzie. Two of them forgot, but one remembered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Crumbling Difference

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: This was written as three ficlets for three prompts in [](http://elrhiarhodan.livejournal.com/profile)[**elrhiarhodan**](http://elrhiarhodan.livejournal.com/)'s [Promptfest VII](http://elrhiarhodan.livejournal.com/302176.html). To fit the 90s theme, the title is from Counting Crows, "Round Here."
> 
> Timeline note: I'm going with the idea that the characters on White Collar are approximately the same age as the actors, so this is set in approximately 1996. The WC timeline seems like an uncertain beast, so in my mind Neal initially came to New York considerably more than the "eight years ago” given in Forging Bonds, and there were some years in between Neal connecting with Mozzie and the development of his forging skills, his time with Adler, etc. Neal just didn't want to share all of the messy details with Peter.

**Part I: A Sky the Color of Tears**

Neal sat in the bus shelter and pulled his knees up to his chest to hold in what warmth he had remaining in his body. He didn't have anywhere to go, but he had a Metrocard he'd picked from a tourist's pocket, and at least a long bus ride would get him out of the rain for a while. The subway would be warmer, but he wanted to be able to see the city—not just the people but the buildings and the statues—as the bus trundled through the streets. Inside the bus, he could pretend the whole city was a work of art on his easel, the tear-colored sky reflecting the way he felt.

But he didn't have an easel, and he didn't have any paints. He had a sketchbook in his backpack, wrapped up in a plastic bag to keep it dry, along with pencils and the stubby remains of the set of pastels Ellen had bought him for his birthday. He told himself that it was better to be alone in a city full of possibilities than to be lonely in a house with his mother and her silence and her lies. He told himself that he was going to find something better any day because he was meant for better things. He knew that deep down inside where the cold and the damp and the hunger and the weariness couldn't touch.

"Hey.” The voice coming from above Neal sounded like a cop or something, not angry or sleazy but confident, and when he looked up he saw a man in a boxy gray suit. Maybe a detective, Neal thought, though he wasn't too old. The man frowned, a worried look in his dark eyes. "Hey, are you okay?”

Neal blinked up at him. Of course he was okay, it's not like he was some kind of lost child. "I'm fine,” he said, smiling to reinforce it. He _wasn't_ a child, but he didn't know if the Marshals or Ellen or anybody was looking for him, and he didn't want this detective or whatever trying to take him in to the police station. Neal was done with the police. Done.

The man just looked steadily at Neal for a long moment and then nodded. "Okay.”

Neal looked down the street to see if the bus was coming, and when he looked back the man was gone. The bus was taking forever, and Neal had started to drift off into a daze when he felt the bench underneath him shift. Neal glanced over and saw the man in the suit sitting there with two blue and white coffee cups, steam rising from both of them.

"Two for one special,” the man said. His voice was dry but kind, inviting Neal to buy into his fiction. "You want to take one of these off my hands?”

Neal didn't like accepting charity; he didn't mind _stealing_ what he needed, but having it offered was more complicated. Still, the guy didn't seem like somebody who was going to preach to Neal about religion or poison him and sell him into slavery, and Neal's instincts had been good enough to keep him safe so far. And he could almost feel the heat of the coffee, even from a few feet away. "Thanks,” he said, reaching out to take the offered cup. Even through the double thickness of two cups stacked together, the heat was shocking against Neal's cold hands, but then he took a sip and the sweet, milky hot liquid started to warm him up from the inside.

"So, you have a name?” The man asked like he didn't care one way or the other whether Neal answered. Neal took another sip and hoped he hadn't been wrong about this guy, but he figured he owed him at least a little conversation in payment for the coffee.

"Nick,” he said. "I'm Nick.”

"Nick, I'm Peter. You have someplace warm to go?” The man, Peter, looked genuinely concerned, and his concern made Neal want to hide. But there was nowhere to hide.

He nodded. "Yeah, just waiting for my bus.”

"I think it's here now.” The bus pulled up to the stop, with the squeal of tires on wet pavement and the mechanical whir of the front end lowering down toward the street. Neal stood and climbed on the bus, biting his lip as he heard Peter following him. But Peter didn't follow Neal to the back of the bus; he just sat near the front and then got off a few stops later. As he walked to the back exit, Peter looked at Neal then nodded and gave him a small smile. Then he was gone.

As Neal sat there next to the window, sipping his coffee while he watched the gray streets go by, he thought about that smile and imagined being friends with the guy, with Peter. But he knew it was just a stupid dream; there was no good reason for some guy who was probably thirty to want to spend time with a high school dropout who didn't even have enough money to buy his own cup of coffee. The only people who wanted to be friends with Neal were people he didn't want to be friends with. He was stupid to even think about it.

When the coffee was all gone, Neal put the cup in his lap and noticed a tiny corner of something green sticking up from between the two layers of cup. He pried apart the two cups, and as the friction gave way and the cups slid apart, something fluttered down into Neal's lap. It was a fifty, folded in half and still molded into a semi-circle from the pressure of the cups. Neal sniffled and blinked away the tears he felt burning behind his eyes. He was just tired, he told himself as he tucked the money way down inside his sock. He was tired, but he wasn't cold anymore.

 _Better things,_ he told himself as he looked at the buildings rising high above the street and thought about what he was going to eat for dinner. _Better things._

**Part II: Shapes Like Stars**

The waitresses at the Kiev liked Neal. He wasn't sure if it was because he managed to pick up enough Ukrainian to compliment them in their native tongue or because he made sure to only go eat there when he had enough cash to leave a decent tip, but either way his efforts had paid off. He suspected that they saw through him enough to know he wasn't one of the college students who usually sat around ordering pancakes and cans of cherry soda, but he clearly wasn't a club kid, even if he lived among them.

He was staying in a squat in the East Village, and he told himself that it wasn't too bad; it was only temporary, after all. He knew how to defend himself, and unlike most of his "neighbors” he was never incoherent from heroin or ecstasy or plain old alcohol. Half of them were fifteen year-old girls anyway, and Neal hated it but he couldn't even fix his own life, much less theirs. He slept lightly, and the few times things had gotten weird he just ran. He was good at running.

He used the squat for sleeping only, so he had a lot of hours to kill in between. He couldn't get a real job that would require ID because he threw away Danny Brooks before he got to New York, but he usually managed to get enough money to keep himself fed. He unloaded trucks for the owner of a bakery until her grandson came back into town and put him out of a job. He played chess in the park until the old guys there decided he was a ringer, and then his luck seemed to run out for real. With the cold weather and the lack of sleep, he wasn't steady enough to trust himself to pick pockets other than the easiest marks. He almost got caught a week before, and since then the nerves just made it worse.

But he had a $50 bill in his sock, thanks to the generosity of a stranger, and he thought his luck was turning around. He was sitting at a table in the Kiev with a bowl of chicken soup and a plate stacked with thick slices of buttered challah bread--three slices instead of two because the waitresses liked him--eating while he read a book he lifted from the Astor Place Barnes & Noble a few days earlier. He was warm and fed and most of the way dry, and he was in a place where he felt like a real person rather than a ghost or a fake.

"Um, hi?” A female voice that sounded nothing like one of the Kiev's waitresses startled Neal out of his thoughts.

He looked up to see who was talking to him, and she was gorgeous--big blue eyes, long brown hair and a smile that made Neal want to smile back. She wore a black dress over dark green tights and black Doc Martens, her body curvy and strong the girls in his squat rarely were. She looked just a little bit older than Neal, an NYU student if he'd guessed right. "Hi.”

"I'm sorry to bother you, but this place is _crammed_. Is there any way you'd let me sit here?” She gestured at the empty seat catty-corner across from Neal. "I swear I'll leave you alone and let you read.”

"Sure, go ahead. I'm not doing a great job at reading tonight anyway.”

"Great thanks!” Her smile was softer then, but still bright as she sat down and shrugged off her jacket. "Anyway, my name's Elizabeth, but most people call me El.”

Neal thought about introducing himself as Nick, but then he realized that this person, this guy sitting in a restaurant talking to a nice girl, was who he wanted to be. "I'm Neal,” he said, "but most people call me N.”

She mock-glared at him and started to say something else when Marina walked up to take El's order. She ordered coffee and potato pierogies then turned to look at Neal again. "So, what do you do when you're not letting strange girls sit at your table?”

Neal shrugged. "Nothing special.”

"I bet that's not true.” Her coffee arrived at the table, and she took a sip.

"What about you, you're in school, right? What's your major?”

"Art History, so you'll probably see me working at Starbucks next year after I graduate.”

"There are worse things,” Neal said, more seriously than he'd intended, and he wished he could take it back.

"I know. Oh my god, do you work at Starbucks?” She looked upset; Neal wasn't cut out for talking to people this nice.

"No. It's okay, I was just kidding.” He gave his most charming smile, and she smiled back but as he ate some of his bread he could see her watching him even as she tried to hide it. He was almost too tired to keep eating, but he wasn't about to waste the meal even if he would have most of his money left after paying for it. He needed to save enough cash to buy himself an identity good enough to let him get a job and the other things he'd need one day. A bank account. A passport.

Marina brought El's plate of pierogies, doughy things all covered in onions and sour cream, and Neal wasn't too sure if it looked good but she seemed to enjoy it. Between bites, they started chatting about art--the museums they'd both been to, their favorite artists, El's father's opinion of her major--and Neal worked his way through the rest of his food and another cup of tea.

When El left the table to use the restroom in the back, Neal thought that he should just leave and get it over with, but he closed his eyes and woke to the touch of a hand on his wrist. He jerked away before he realized it was only El. "Sorry,” he said.

"No, hey, I'm sorry. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

"Yeah, I'm fine. I should get going though.”

El bit her lip, looking at Neal like she wanted to say something, and then she nodded. "Okay.”

They paid their tabs and then worked their way through the tangle of tables to the front door. Outside, Neal's eyes teared up from the cold, and the glow of the streetlights on Second Ave. stretched into shapes like stars until he cleared his eyes with the heels of his hands. He hadn't realized it was so late, and he turned to look at El who was still next to him, buttoning up her coat. "I should walk you home.”

She giggled and stretched up to press a light kiss to Neal's cheek. "You're adorable. One, my dorm is about three doors that way.” She pointed up Seventh St. "Two, I've been walking myself home for three years now, and I can take care of myself.” She looked up at him for a moment, her lips pressed together. "And three, you look like you're about to fall over. How far away is home?”

 _Home_. Neal wasn't sure where home was, if he even had one. His mother's house wasn't home. Wherever they'd lived before WitSec, Neal didn't even remember that. Ellen's house, maybe, but he couldn't go back there. Home definitely wasn't his corner of a building full of teenage tragedies. He shook his head, shaking himself out of the thought. "Just a few blocks, don't worry.”

"O-okay. Hey, wait.” She dug a piece of paper and a pen out of her purse and wrote on it quickly. "Here's my number, call me if you want to go check out the Cloisters sometime. My roommate has a boyfriend in Colorado, so if you call and it's busy you might want to wait about three hours before you call back.” She rolled her eyes and handed over the number.

"I'll call,” he said, lying. He watched her walk up Seventh and then started walking in the other direction, toward First Ave. and onward.

Back at the squat, he dragged himself in through the back window and trudged up the stairs to hole up in his usual spot. As he curled up in his blanket, he concentrated on spring, the promise of spring that was only weeks away. Blue skies and warm days in the park and people eager to get rid of their money.

All he had to do was wait. _And survive. And not do anything he couldn't forgive himself for. And not call his mom or Ellen or anyone else._ All he had to do was wait.

**Part III: Where the Road Leads**

Neal had a policy; if he could help it, he didn't take from anybody who was going to miss the money. He didn't want to hurt anybody. He didn't want to take away the money somebody needed to buy groceries or get to work in the morning, so he made sure to target the men in the thousand dollar suits and the women who were out shopping, throwing money around like it was meaningless to them. He knew that it was a fine line, that people would condemn him for being a thief no matter who he stole from, but as much as he didn't want to hurt people he also didn't want to starve. And he wasn't willing to treat his body like a meaningless thing to be sold and used.

He was better than that. He had to be.

When he slipped out of the house he was squatting in, finally rested after spending most of the day before holed up in his hidden corner, he found himself squinting against the sunshine. The sky was blue, and when Neal got out to the sidewalk he was almost warm. He knew it would probably be cold and wet again in a day or two, but he was happy for a glimpse of spring and an opportunity to explore without getting drenched and frozen. He sat at the counter in a tiny diner and read some more of his book over the breakfast special, after using their bathroom to clean up as much as he could, then wandered up to 14th St. before deciding to head west. He didn't have anywhere special to go, so he just kept going, past Union Square until the Hudson was in sight. He saw a bus coming, so he stood at the stop and got on.

The neighborhoods turned from worse to better, and when they started turning back again he pulled the chain and got off. The map in his head told him that Central Park was a couple of long blocks to his right, Riverside Park a few blocks to his left. It was the kind of day that made sunlight sparkle on water, so Neal turned left toward the river. When he got to the park, he walked up a few more blocks then stopped and looked around. Foot traffic was steady but not heavy, and he didn't see any cops.

Neal had a deck of cards in his backpack, and he'd spent a few days studying the guys running games around the downtown parks. He'd practiced for a while, and he thought he knew what he was doing. He didn't have a table, but that just made him more mobile in case the police did show up. He pulled out his deck and took out three cards-- the queen of diamonds, the two of hearts and the four of spades. All three of them were already bent into a curve to make them easier to move, but he smoothed them through his fingers again before setting them out on the bench next to him. He did his best to look innocent and clueless, all the better for somebody to try to take advantage of him and fail.

Neal's rule about taking money from people who didn't have it to spare didn't extend to gambling. Anybody who was willing to gamble away their grocery money was going to do it whether he benefitted or not. Even still, he was happy when the first person to head his way looked like she was richer than god. She was a black lady, older but not old, and her outfit looked like it cost more than every piece of clothing Neal's mother had ever owned combined. She was walking a medium-sized poodle, and the dog was as impeccably groomed as his mistress. She smiled kindly at him, and he wondered how many rounds she would play, how much money she would let him win from her. She was the perfect mark.

Except she wasn't. He had $35 left from the fifty dollar bill he'd been given two days before, and he wasn't worried about putting it up against the rich lady's money. He let her win $10, but when she won a second $10 on her own he started to feel sick. His stomach tense at the possibility of losing all but his last few dollars, Neal put his last $10 down on the bench. Neal didn't understand how, didn't understand it at all, but she won again. He just wanted to take off into the park, lick his wounds, look at the water, try to think of a new plan, but the lady wrapped her hand around his wrist to hold him in place.

"Dear boy, I can't take your money.”

"You're not taking it, you won it fair and square.”

"Well, maybe.” She winked then, giving Neal a glimpse of something wicked under her polished exterior. "And you're quite good, but you have a lot still to learn.”

"How do _you_ know?” Neal asked, baffled. Still, he took the three tens she held out and stuck them back in his sock.

"Oh, you might not think it, but there was a time when I sat at the poker table with men who would've eaten you for lunch.” She smiled softly then looked at Neal again, her eyes narrowing. "Let me teach you. We'll go to lunch at a café down the street and sit outside so all the busybodies in the neighborhood can speculate on whether I'm stepping out on my Byron with a handsome young man.”

"I don't—”

"Hush. I'm going to take you to lunch and teach you how to hide the lady right.”

"Yes, ma'am,” Neal said, giving in. The whole situation was too weird to feel right, but if she wanted to buy him lunch he wasn't going to complain.

She arched one sculptured eyebrow. "My name is June. And what shall I call you?”

Neal hesitated a moment before erring on the side of caution. "Nick.”

"That's a good name.” She nodded and stood. "Well, Nick, no time like the present.”

Neal stood and pulled his backpack onto his shoulders. After a pointed look from June, he held out his arm for her to take, and she steered them across the street and down the block to a cafe with tables set up outside. In her hands, the cards moved like lightning, and then she guided his hands with her soft, strong fingers. She ordered him a roast beef sandwich and a tall glass of lemonade, and led him in a conversation about music and art, travel and the jewels of the city. She didn't ask Neal about his past, but after they finished eating she looked straight at him.

"Now tell me, Nick, where are you sleeping?”

"I have a place.” He shrugged, his full stomach knotting at the question.

"Do you?” Her tone said _bullshit_ , and Neal wondered what a rich lady like her would know about it.

"I'm fine, really.”

"I see. I only ask because I have a bit of a situation. Until a few weeks ago, I was employing a young man to walk my dog for me. I do love walking Lucky, but I'm too busy to give him all the exercise he needs, and I just don't trust those dog-walker services.” She pointedly looked down at where Lucky had his head on Neal's feet. "The salary isn't much to speak of, but Lucky likes to be walked first thing in the morning so the position comes with a room. It isn't anything fancy, just an old storage area near the kitchen, but it has its own entrance and exit. Of a sort.”

"You--you want me to live in your house?”

"Well yes, assuming you don't have a lease you'd need to break to move.” Her look made it clear she knew that Neal didn't have anything even close to a lease. "And it's a very large house. Why don't you let me show you?”

Stunned, Neal couldn't help but nod and then follow her down Riverside Drive. She led him into an overwhelmingly impressive mansion and then down into a series of rooms on the ground level. The room she offered to him was small, but it had a bed and a dresser and a window high on the wall that ran nearly the width of the room. Not much of the late afternoon sunlight found its way inside, but Neal thought it would be bright in the morning. June opened the closet and showed him the false wall that opened into a narrow passageway that led to the alley behind the house.

There was a bathroom and shower that he'd have to share and a door near the kitchen that was just three steps down from the street. The kitchen had an industrial-size refrigerator and a pantry as big as his bedroom, and June told him to take what he needed. There was a lock on his door and a small key, which she pressed into his hand.

Neal sat on the bed, trying to understand that he didn't have to go back to the squat in the East Village. He didn't have to climb over people and hope that the morning wouldn't come with one of them being taken away in an ambulance. He looked at June where she was standing in the doorway. "Why are you doing this? And please don't tell me you can't get anybody else to walk your dog.”

June sighed and sat down on the end of the bed, suddenly looking less than perfectly polished. "I was new to the city once, terribly young and straight off the bus from Virginia, and I was very, very lucky. I like to pass some of that luck along, and you, Nick, I suspect you'll be finding your own luck soon. I don't know where your road will lead, but I'll be surprised if it's not somewhere _very_ interesting.”

Neal swallowed hard and looked up at the window on the far wall. "Will you call me Neal?” He asked June. "My name is Neal.”

"That's an even better name.” She took his hand and squeezed it before standing up and walking back to the door. "I'll ask Lydia to bring you some towels and things, and you may want to set the alarm clock because Lucky likes his walk first thing in the morning.”

"Yes, ma'am,” Neal said, then corrected himself at June's arched eyebrow. "Yes, June. Thank you.”

"You're very welcome, Neal. Now sleep well.”

As if her words were a post-hypnotic suggestion, Neal laid down on top of the covers, his backpack tucked under his head, and fell asleep. When he woke up, the room was lit only by streetlight filtering in through the window, and a small stack of towels sat on top of his dresser. He showered, feeling truly clean for the first time since he'd conned his way into the NYU gym a week earlier, then got back in bed, under the covers. It felt like his bed at home. Not home, he reminded himself, just his mother's house, but the bed was warm and safe and his own. And the lies were all his own to tell, but somehow with June he didn't mind telling the truth.

~~~

A few months later, Neal had parlayed the skills he learned from June into enough cash to buy a clean identity and find his own apartment, and soon after that he met Mozzie. He turned from street hustles to forging bonds using the talent his high school art teacher had admired so much. He did more more. And so much more. He lost touch with June, but when he met her again almost a decade and a half later, she was just the same woman Neal had known before. Her eyes lit up when she saw him, and he knew she remembered the desperate boy he'd been, the boy she'd taught him to leave behind.

Even tethered to an anklet and dependent on the good graces of the FBI, Neal loved the city. He loved it for the warm places, the public art and the good food. He loved it for the nameless people who'd helped save his life, once upon a time. He remembered them all, but he couldn't recall their faces well enough to recognize them again amongst the millions of strangers. He hoped he'd find them one day and share a smile or an elevator or a counter at Starbucks. He'd keep his eyes open always. Always. 

**Author's Note:**

> This story has a sequel: [Something Radiates](http://archiveofourown.org/works/651751).


End file.
